Source: Rekordsesong for cruisedestinasjon Norge | Kystverket
Nice clear and calm evening in Ă
lesund yesterday:
A bit of a generation gap between these two Cruise ships visiting Ă
lesund today:
MEIN SCHIFF 4 (IMO: 9678408) is a Passenger Ship that was built in 2015 ( 7 years ago) and is sailing under the flag of Malta.
Itâs carrying capacity is 99526 Gross Tonnage and her current draught is reported to be 8.2 meters. Her length overall (LOA) is 293.2 meters and her width is 42.3 meters.
MS Deutschland (IMO: 9141807) is a Passenger Ship that was built in 1998 (24 years ago) and is sailing under the flag of Bahamas .
Itâs carrying capacity is 22496 Gross Tonnage and her current draught is reported to be 5.8 meters. Her length overall (LOA) is 175 meters and her width is 23 meters.
Sailing as World Odyssey from September until April each year.
Here is an explanation on the name change twice a year:
This is a product that many here is probably familiar with:
Others may be more familiar this product:
Produced here in Ă
lesund since 1955:
https://polyform.no/about/
Now produced in many parts of the world, incl. the US:
Not a subsidiary of Polyform AS ,Norway.
Their products looks the same at first glance, but there are slight differences;
Looks more like the Square rigged Christian Radich:
Here is the Schooner Christiania:
It may be summer but there are still a lot of show left in the mountains.
An avalanche hit a popular tourist area a couple of days ago :
The avalanche started at abt, 1800 m. asl. It was released spontaneously due to warm weather and rain. It reach the bottom of the valley, blocking the road and hitting several cars, including a Winnebago with a family of three inside. They escaped with minor injuries, but the Winnebago was totally smashed (as can be seen in the video)
From smp.no 4 days ago:
Electric atmosphere in the Geirangerfjord
The couple from Ă
lesund enjoy the shipâs fish soup. They are on a day trip with Kystrutenâs âHavila Castorâ, on the way from Ă
lesund to Geiranger:
The shipping company in FosnavĂĽg, which currently only has one of four planned ships in operation, will this summer make the trip to Geiranger on all northbound voyages between Bergen and Kirkenes.
And they will do it with the help of electric propulsion the last stretch into Geiranger. There will also be some battery use elsewhere along the coast, but most of all they will run on LNG.
Battery use will be expanded as more charging stations come along the coast. Today Havila can only charge in Trondheim.
Tom Anker Skrede, head of tourism at Destinasjon Ă
lesund & Sunnmøre, believes that they avoid fossil fuels, is absolutely crucial:
âHavila Castorâ, with Captain Truls Bruland and 1st mate Egil Grov Nilssen, from Sørreisa and Sandnessjøen, respectively, on duty in the wheelhouse, leads us almost silently into the fjord:
Not far away is CEO Bent Martini how are watching the progress with excitement:
The ships are built at a yard in Turkey, but designed in Norway and a lot of the equipment onboard are from Norway:
Martini adds that according to the plan, another ship will be put into service at the end of September, while the last of four ordered ships will be in action from mid-December. And then they have âHavila Capellaâ, then, which is located in Bergen and is waiting to be sorted out in the insurance problem that the war in Ukraine has created.
But âHavila Castorâ is, fortunately for the shipping company, in full swing along the coast, something not least Vibeke Fjørtoft from Nordfjordeid and Sondre Rødseth Hemnes from Gursken are happy about:
Positive guests
Many of the guest on the present round trip are Germans. One of them is 78-year-old Bernd Hochsattler from Frankfurt. He is in a traveling party of four:
In the shop on board, among clothes, spices and cards, author Espen A. Jacobsen sits at a table full of stacks of books. Havila thought his book, âCoastal Holiday in Norwayâ, fit like hand in glove for them, and contributed greatly to the book now also being published in English and German.
The book is published by Vigmostad & Bjørke (https://www.vigmostadbjorke.no/):
Those who work in the shop explain that the tourists, in addition to books, like to secure T-shirts, sweaters and cardigans, postcards - and the shipâs self-produced spices.
Climate accounting
Sandra Ness, head of Climate & Environment in Havila, says that it is not just when it comes to fuel that the company thinks about the environment.
On the right track
No one is 100 percent sustainable, not even us. But we are well on our way, says Sandra Ness.
At least we are on our way to Geiranger. There is already a large cruise ship on which it smokes from the funnel. It does not with us. On this voyage, the ship ran on battery for three hours. The shipping company says there will be more eventually.
I am at least 99.95 percent sure that this is the right investment, says the shipowner, Per SĂŚvik (80)
PS> Per SĂŚvik started his working life as a fisherman at 14 and was Skipper on his own fishing boat at 21. He is now 80 and still active.
When asked; How long are you going to keep working like this?
It is soon that time of the year again;
This Saturday 25. June the âSlinningsbĂĽletâ bone fire will be burning brightly again:
This year it will be without any pandemic restrictions for the spectators, ashore or on the water.
Here the firework prior to lighting the 2020 âSlinningsbĂĽlâ:
In 1992 there were still several large bonfires buring in Ă
lesund to celebrate St.Hans, or âMidsummer nightâ.
This one was built at what is now Skutvika Container Terminal that year:
That kind of luxury is not available at the skerry where SlinningsbĂĽlet is located:
Then it is done for this year. SlinningsbĂĽlet that took weeks of hard work to create burnt down in a few hours without the spectacular collapse that everybody was waiting for. Maybe they had been too cleaver building it this year?
It did shred some falling debris towards the end (see from 3:20:00 onwards:
By Midnight it was only a glowing heap left:
Time to head home for most:
The new Expedition Cruise ship Viking Polaris was out on yard trail from Vard Søviknes where she is under outfitting. They took time out to join all the other boats watching Slinningsbület.
Seen here on the way in Hessafjorden:
She wisely stayed away from the maddening crowed close to the bonfire while it was burning at itâs strongest:
And left to get back to do her trials when the bonfire was ebbing:
Shetland Isles are being invaded by Norwegians again:
It is a friendly invasion, marked by the signing of a Friendship Agreement:
At the same time Norwegian salmon rivers are being invaded by an unwanted species; Pink salmon or humpback salmon, which is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family. It is the smallest and most abundant of the Pacific salmon.
The Norwegian wild salmon is endangered and under strong pressure from many quarters. One of the new threats is the invasions of the alien species humpback salmon that disrupt wild salmon reproduction:
This comes on top of the escaped farmed salmon. Humpback salmon spawn every two years, and river owners and salmon fishermen hold their breath before the 2023 season. It is expected to offer a humpback salmon nightmare in several places.
Rørstad is the leader and largest owner of the company Troll Systems AS. Their job is to create the infrastructure itself.
Huawei is responsible for the camera technology, while a third company, Simula consulting, is developing the artificial intelligence.
Furthermore, an effort is also needed to operate the âfishing trapâ during the spawning season.
From Sunday 26 June, the company will in a couple of days drive equipment from Bodø, to Berlevüg, which is located in the far north of Finnmark. There the scheme will be tried out on farmed salmon.
From smp.no today (behind paywall) Google translation with a little help
PS> Maybe useful to stop invasive species, like Atlantic farmed salmon, in US rivers?
Oh forgot, that probably wouldnât be allowed if Huawei equipment is involved.
Something that probably is more interesting to most:
From another thread:
Unfortunately the gulf state found a different solution; in stead of flaring the associated gas from the oil production they gathered it, piped it to the coast and used it to evaporate seawater, thus making cheap fresh water without being dependent on anybody else.
BTW; less GHG emission, since they didnât have to ship water over long distances in fuel burning VLCCs.
Actually there were plans at the time of the tanker crisis to ship fresh water from Norway to Southern Europe/North Africa/Middle East, using VLCCs.
The plans to export water from Norway have been revived recently:
No, not the expensive bottle glacier water from Voss, or ice cubes cut from glaciers, sold at ridiculous prices at exclusive bars in NYC, Las Vegas and Dubai etc.
The water would first go through a turbine to make cheap renewable electricity for households and industry:
PS> Some of that energy could be used to produce âGreen Hydrogenâ as fuel for the VLCCs.
The tankers to be moored, loaded (and refueled?) near the power stations, with a minimum of infrastructure required, as there are deep water close to shore and all along the fjords:
The water sources are from melting snow and glaciers, collected in reservoirs high in the mountains and piped (or in narrow tunnels) to power stations near the fjords and is âdiscardedâ.
It is clean, so no expensive rinsing process needed. (Silt filtering is done before the turbines)
The water is still potable after passing through turbines and being transported in clean coated tanks over long distances.
The hydro station presently supplying an aluminium smelter is fed from a lake formed from melt water like your Norwegian hydro. The hydro station is inside the mountain 600 metres below the lake. The turbine hall is cut out of granite and the tail races exit in a fiord very much the same as your picture but there are no buildings or people there.
